BASIC PENTACYSTEINE1 regulates by modification of two histone marks H3K27me3 and H3ac during early seed development of .

Introduction: The production of highly vigorous seeds with high longevity is an important lever to increase crop production efficiency, but its acquisition during seed maturation is strongly influenced by the growth environment.

Methods: An association rule learning approach discovered MtABI4, a known longevity regulator, as a gene with transcript levels associated with the environmentally-induced change in longevity. To understand the environmental sensitivity of transcription, Yeast One-Hybrid identified a class I BASIC PENTACYSTEINE (MtBPC1) transcription factor as a putative upstream regulator. Its role in the regulation of was further characterized.

Results And Discussion: Overexpression of MtBPC1 led to a modulation of transcripts and its downstream targets. We show that MtBPC1 represses transcription at the early stage of seed development through binding in the CT-rich motif in its promoter region. To achieve this, MtBPC1 interacts with SWINGER, a sub-unit of the PRC2 complex, and Sin3-associated peptide 18, a sub-unit of the Sin3-like deacetylation complex. Consistent with this, developmental and heat stress-induced changes in transcript levels correlated with H3K27me3 and H3ac enrichment in the promoter. Our finding reveals the importance of the combination of histone methylation and histone de-acetylation to silence at the early stage of seed development and during heat stress.